UK and Canadian perspectives of the effectiveness of mobile diabetes management systems

The use of mobile technologies for self-monitoring of blood glucose and blood pressure for diabetes patients is becoming increasingly popular worldwide. This is propelled by the proliferation of the wider usage of mobile phones and other wireless technologies and computing platforms in the healthcare sector. Such technologies can play a pivotal role in chronic disease management and patient self-care. There have been several clinical trials in recent years on mobile diabetes management in UK and Canada. However, no studies to date have addressed and correlated the technological and clinical outcomes concerning the use of mobile chronic disease management systems for diabetes from the UK and Canadian perspectives. In this paper we address some of these correlative issues based on similar clinical trials on mobile type-2 diabetes management systems deployed in these two countries. In particular, the outcomes of these trials supported the use of telemonitoring for effective blood pressure control, but telemonitoring was less effective at managing blood glucose control. Some of the clinical results and challenges are presented together with future work and suggestions that aim to validate a generic platform for mobile diabetes management.